There’s an anecdote that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if the water is cold and gradually heated, it won’t recognize the danger and will be cooked to death. Apparently the sharks that were recently filmed around Kavachi, a highly active underwater volcano near the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, didn’t get the memo.
In what is now being dubbed “Sharkcano,” Brennan Phillips and his team were on an expedition to Kavachi in search of hydrothermal activity, when they witnessed the sharks in question that they weren’t prepared to see deep inside the volcanic crater.
Specifically, they saw silky sharks, hammerheads and the rare Pacific sleeper shark, which has only been caught on video twice until now, along with some jellyfish, snappers and a sixgill stingray swimming in the scalding water.
Volcanic vents such as the ones at Kavachi can release fluids above 800 degrees Farenheit while having acidity comparable to vinegar.
“The idea of there being large animals, like sharks, hanging out and living inside the caldera of this volcano conflicts with what we know about Kavachi, which is that it erupts,” says ocean engineer Brennan Phillips, who led the trip.
While the original purpose of the expedition had been to gather data about hydrothermal activity and geology of the crater and to map the peak of the volcano, the question as to why sharks congregated inside an active volcano is a mystery Phillips hopes to solve.
